Explained | The Telecommunications Act of 2023 comes into effect

Representative image. | Photo credit: The Hindu

The Telecommunications Act 2023 saw the notification of a cluster of rules this month, namely the Telecommunications (Authorisation to Provide Major Telecommunications Services) Rules 2026; the Telecommunications (Authorization of Captive Telecommunications Services) Rules, 2026; and the Telecommunications (authorisation to provide various telecommunication services) Rules, 2026.

There are not many operational changes in the Indian telecom ecosystem due to the parent Act or the notified rules as the main objective of the legislation is to simplify the oft-amended Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, which replaces (along with other companion Acts such as the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933.

In the process, the Union government gained some greater powers in the text of the parent statute, such as the definition of “telecommunications” that can be used to regulate messaging apps. (While the government initially denied this, last year the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) tried to force WhatsApp to log users out of the service’s web instances every six hours and “bind” each user to a SIM as an anti-spam measure.)

Of course, this is not the beginning of the announcement of the law. As early as 2024, the government announced parts of the bill, such as the one that renamed the universal service obligation fund (where telecom companies are required to pay into a corpus to fund financially unfeasible telecom infrastructure in remote and isolated areas) Digital Bharat Nidhi. Another part of the bill that was announced was one that allowed the government to seize telecommunications infrastructure for reasons of national security or war.

Other parts of the law, already announced in previous months, include replacing wiretapping orders, where the government has retained the power of senior officials to issue phone and internet wiretapping orders despite pressure from industry and civil society.

The special rules announced this month replace most of the licensing framework for telecoms operators. This has been replaced by the term “authorization” with language added to simplify and streamline some of the paperwork that telecommunications companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must do. It also adds anti-spam enforcement as an overriding law obligation.

The new telecommunications law also recognizes satellite internet, but this has been withdrawn, although Starlink, the world’s largest satellite internet provider, is awaiting approval to launch. “The final rules have removed the explicit references to Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite (GMPCS) as contained in the draft rules,” law firm Khaitan & Co. wrote in a brief. Separately, intelligence reports (and delays) suggest that the government has not yet given up on concerns about whether it can actually shut down Starlink, seeing it being used in countries like Iran despite the local government.

In any case, telcos and ISPs can choose to switch to this authorization mode now or wait until their license expires and then apply again. In any case, Khaitan & Co stressed, “significant operational details are still pending…implementation details await further clarification and remain dependent on further specifications, including the ‘healthy’ record criterion, exemption thresholds and technical guidance.”

Published – 27 Jun 2026 11:42 IST